Los Angeles artist Ted Twine produces
playfully contemplative abstract oil paintings primarily, but
also drawings, digital graphic editions and photography in
his San Pedro, California studio. His work continues to explore
metaphysical space, color as vibration and visual energy,
shape and gesture as visual language speaking directly to emotion
and the intuitive (right) hemisphere of the brain. He is particularly
interested in the juxtaposition of unlikely elements to form
unique and engaging combinations, which encourages the viewer
to perceive multiple visual relationships simultaneously.
Such expansion of our perceptual powers, Twine feels, leads to
a sense of connection between subject and object.
My
work:
I always have wanted to make art that, while contemporary, can
potentially converse with the past as well as the future; that
can reach the young as well as the mature, the culturally untutored
as well as the knowing art appreciator.
I use a personal visual vocabulary consisting of rich color as both underlying
tone when used as a background field, and as visual energy expressed in marks,
shapes, lines and textures.
My interest is in what happens when stillness and non-judgment
intersect with pure perception, instinct and a communication
based on feeling rather than intellect.
Multi-tasking is common nowadays, yet when it comes to comprehending
new elements in the environment, including art, we tend to
funnel all the information we gather through the prism of the
intellectual brain. We tend to think, and thus interpret, through
a left-brain dominated (rational, ordered) thought structure,
while the highest truths that are expressed in the arts or through
spiritual discourse require a balanced, quiet and intuitive mind
to "get" it.
In our visual world, when looking at what is in front of
us—art or anything else—we can learn to disengage
from the habitual dominant-eye supported way of seeing,
to allow ourselves to look with both eyes in a balanced manner,
and in doing so see through the meditative brain, mining the
richness therein.
We are able to appreciate music with more depth when we can
hear all the instruments, and sense their individual dynamics
within the whole sound. With poetic or prose literature we gain
deeper insights when we free ourselves as readers from the tendency
to demand convention and easy structures. My art asks the viewer
to engage in multi-tasking in a perceptual sense, integrating
the harmoniously disparate elements in the composition. At the
same time, I hope to touch emotional contact points.
Each work of art is both a statement and a question not easily
answered. That is part of the exhilaration we feel around it.
By being able to comfortably embrace apparent contradictions,
which art teaches, we discover pathways toward a deeper understanding
of the human situation and ourselves. |
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Myself:
- born in Japan in 1950; mother Japanese, father African American
- until age 12 lived on military bases, attended Los Angeles public schools
- attended UCLA, ICU (Tokyo), where I studied philosophy, East Asian studies
- after a few years independently living, studying and traveling
in Japan, Taiwan and India, I attended UC Santa Barbara, receiving
a B.A. cum laude in 1976
- while at UCSB, I studied painting with the late William Dole, noted for his abstract watercolor and collage works, at whose urging I began practicing art as a vocation
- lived in San Francisco 5 years, Tokyo 4 years, L.A. since
1984
- have had several solo exhibitions in Tokyo and Los Angeles
- also have worked as a teacher, photographer and designer;
now mainly paint and produce digitally printed graphic editions,
while developing some new photo and design projects as well
- live and work in a loft in San Pedro, at the Los Angeles
harbor, with my wife, our daughter who is in high school, and
two cats; one grown son is a screenwriter/filmmaker, the other
soon will attend law school
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